Imbolc, Là Fhèill Brìghde (Scottish Gaelic), Candlemas or the Festival of St Brigit is one of the eight festivals celebrated by the Celts of Britain and Ireland to mark the turning of the seasons. Once I started reading about Imbolc I found so much information that some of it will have to wait until next year […]
As it is #HotTeaMonth I thought it was a good time to write about how to brew herbal tea. It is a question I get asked a lot at markets, which is surprising as most people make herbal tea most days without thinking about it, we just don’t think of Tetley as herbal tea! Making herbal […]
To celebrate Hot Tea Month this January I thought I would share an essay I wrote on tea for my Herbal Correspondence Course with the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine a couple of years ago. The title we were given was ‘The Water of Life’ and I chose to write about tea. It was really […]
With climate change being high on the news agenda at the moment I decided to see if research had been carried out to determine how it will effect medicinal herbs. From a web search I found an article by Courtney Cavaliere for the Journal of American Botanical Council on “The Effects of Climate Change on […]
Our medicine garden is a year old! I can’t believe we have been there for a year already. It has been wonderful to transform the space from the former unused allotments that it was into a growing and teaching space. Thank you so much to Diana and Richard who we rent the land off for […]
As we come to the shortest days of the year I thought I would have a look at Pines to see how we can work with these evergreen plants to keep us in good health. Some evergreens e.g. Yew and some Pines are poisonous so ensure you have correctly identified your tree first. Earlier in the year I […]
Following on from my last post I have been seeking out new plants to vinegar in order to help keep me in good health this winter. I boiled my organic cider vinegar to pasteurise it and have made several different vinegars with lemon balm (harvested from our medicine garden) and also hawthorn and rose hips […]
I have made several batches of herbal vinegars this year and some have been delicious and others have had mysterious films forming on and in them which have made them unusable. I was unsure why this was happening until last night when I listened to the weekly radio show that herbalist Susun Weed hosts. For […]
Berry season is a delight. So many different berries to jam, tincture and syrup it can be hard to find time to prepare them all. It is good to remember the benefits they will bring though in the depths of winter with their delicious tastes and medicinal values. Elderberries are traditionally used to soothe sore throats, […]
Thank you to all those who came for our open day. It was such a lovely day with the sunshine, and it was a pleasure to be able to show people our medicine wheel and introduce them to some of the plants that are growing there. We shared fresh herb tea and Abby made a delicious […]
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